A day when the Odyssey is the real solution

Apr. 6, 2014

The Charter School of Wilmington team members, from left, Michael Markell, John Bounds and Anoop Reddi perform a skit responding to the Stackable Structure problem at the Odessey of the Minds competition at Smyrna High School. / GARY EMEIGH/THE NEWS JOURNAL

Written by

Jon Offredo

The News Journal

SMYRNA — Carly Fajardo, 13, isn’t a fan of One Direction, the explosively popular British boy-band. She just plays one who wanders through a haunted hotel, in search of Harry Styles, the group’s hearthrob.

Wearing a homemade shirt professing her pretend love for the group, she, another fangirl and their dog hit roadblock after roadblock as they cruise through the hotel, which looks eerily similar to a gymnasium in Smyrna High School.

The cake they baked for Styles has a hand that bursts out of the top layer; the Italian Ice they were supposed to get was actually Italian Eyes; and Harry Styles himself is actually Hairy Styles, a wolfman narrating their unfortunate expedition.

Fajardo and six other students from the Indian River School District performed the eight-minute skit during the March 22 Odyssey of the Mind state finals in Smyrna, with an audience of parents, coaches and others laughing from the bleachers.

The competition, in its 34th year, is a creative problem-solving competition for elementary, middle and high school-aged students from across Delaware’s schools.

Saturday’s competition saw 37 teams from elementary schools and 34 teams from middle and high schools. The 105 teams are the finalists within the state, having already staved off competition from 210 other teams in regional competitions.

The teams, usually about seven-strong, compete in addressing one of five problem categories, or scenarios, the teams received last fall. Their task was to plan a skit solving the unique dilemma.

Thirty teams will go on to represent Delaware at the World Finals at Iowa State University in late May. The Division III (high school) team from the Indian River School District, coached by Bruce Frye earned a spot in the World Finals with a second-place finish in the “It’s How We Rule,” category. The team consisted of students from Indian River and Sussex Central high schools as well as Southern Delaware School of the Arts. Team members were Ana Natalia Elling, Madison McCabe, Cameron Goff, Maddie Schneider, Randy Short, Jack Saxton and Vanessa Zunum-Ordaz.

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“It’s not really about the competition,” said Bill Combs, president of Delaware Odyssey of the Mind. “Really it’s about the kids competing against themselves and the problem.”

The problem Fajardo and her teammates, many from different schools, faced was the “The Not-So-Haunted House” category, where the team must create and present an original performance that includes four special haunted effects that are meant to scare, but have a different effect.

When the hand emerges from the cake during the students’ skit, Fajardo isn’t scared. She’s annoyed.

Before she and her team took to their imaginations, Fajardo, a seventh grader at the Southern Delaware School of the Arts, said she and another teammate worked on the script quite a bit and created a One Direction parody song. The rest of the team worked on other tasks, but will all come together to share opinions and hammer out the final product.

“I like being able to be creative and to get to share all sorts of ideas,” she said. “There really are no bad ideas in Odyssey of the Mind and you can find a way to incorporate them all.”

Her father, Jason, said he loves coming to watch her daughter perform at these competitions. The creativity, the display of it all and the teamwork provides a platform for the kids to express themselves creatively.

“At this age especially, a lot of them can be really self-conscious about expressing themselves, but they embrace it, they do it in a way that shows problem-solving skills and acting,” he said.

Each team has a coach. Like parents, the adults have to remain fairly hands-off. Judges circle around the students after each skit, questioning them about why they did what they did, and how, partly to gain insight and let the kids brag and explain their process, but also to make sure there was no adult interference, Combs said.

Terri and Jeff Evan, the coaches for the team from Indian River, are both educators and their kids have taken part in the event before.

“It’s one of those things where you stumbled into it, and it’s hard to get pulled out,” Jeff Evan said.